


Somehow we get by with neither

by whitchry9



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [3]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Bleeding, Gen, Guilt, Hiding an injury, Hurt Klaus Hargreeves, Hurt/Comfort, Stab Wound, accidental injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 19:00:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19115773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitchry9/pseuds/whitchry9
Summary: Klaus is sure everything will be fine, up until Five takes a left turn instead of a right.





	Somehow we get by with neither

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt- hiding an injury
> 
> Title from the poem by Jane Morton
> 
> 'I’ll invite all the other mes: crawl in, cry. We all deserve an apology.  
>  We all deserve death. Somehow  
> we get by with neither. Time passes. Everyone forgets.'

Klaus might be bleeding more than he originally thought. But when you get your wounds as collateral damage when your brother saves your life, you tend to downplay any injuries you have.

 

But it would be fine. They were almost back to the Academy, Klaus could bandage up his arm until later, when Mom could stitch him up. If it even needed that. Maybe it didn’t. Klaus was no expert.

 

Five takes a left turn instead of a right, and Klaus’s estimate of how fine things would be gets reassessed.

Klaus pokes his head between the front seats. “Hey, Five, I know that you’re old, so you might have forgotten, but this is not the way back to the house.”

Five doesn’t bother to turn to look at him, but Klaus can feel the glare.

“We’re not going back to the house. Not yet anyway. There’s a hotel nearby that is known to house operatives in between missions. It’s likely where the accomplice escaped to. You know, the sole survivor of the group that Diego didn’t kill.”

Five glares at Diego through the rearview mirror.

 

Diego glares right back. “I’m not gonna apologize for saving our brother’s life.”

 

“Probably didn’t need to kill all five of them when only one of them had a gun to your head,” Ben comments from the passenger seat.

Klaus smirks. One of these days Ben was going to say something without knowing he was corporeal, and was going to get something thrown at him for his trouble. See if Klaus helped him out then.

 

 

The hotel is similar enough to the one Klaus spent two days tied up in that it nearly gives him flashbacks.

“You know, I’m thinking I might wait in the car for this one. Useless powers, etc,” he says.

Five blinks behind him before he can even get a hand on the car door.

“There are only the three of us, four if you count Ben. We need the extra set of eyes. There’s a lot of ground to cover.”

 

Klaus scoffs, but flinches away from Five’s arm that’s trying to push him forward. He disguises a quick check of how much he’s bleeding with an adjustment of his jacket, which was probably a poor choice to wear on a mission, but Klaus was nothing if not extra. Neither Five or Diego seem to notice, but Ben certainly does.

 

“Are you hurt?”

Klaus doesn’t reply, just glares at him.

“I know Diego nicked you, but it looks like more than that. You should tell them.”

Klaus shakes his head, glaring at Ben. There was nothing he could do to tell the others unless Klaus made him corporeal, which he certainly wasn’t going to do if Ben was just going to blab.

 

Five leaves them hovering outside the motel office while he goes in, plastering on a smile and spouting a fake story about his missing father. There might be tears at one point.

Honestly, half the family should have gone into acting instead of the superhero business. It couldn’t have been any less healthy.

 

Diego turns to Klaus, smirking at the sight of their younger/older brother turning on the waterworks, but the smile fades as he scans Klaus.

“You sure you’re fine man?”

“Me? Oh yeah. Just getting a bit peckish. Didn’t have time to eat breakfast this morning.”

Which was true. He’d been sleeping when Diego stormed into his bedroom and told him to get dressed for a mission. 

Diego looks skeptical, but doesn’t push.

 

As soon as he turns away, Klaus slumps against the wall.

“You’re an idiot,” Ben tells him. “And you’re bleeding through your jacket.”

Klaus presses his arm tight against his chest, hoping the extra pressure would help stem the flow until this was over with.

 

As soon as Five turns around the fake smile vanishes from his face.

The door to the office hasn’t even closed behind him before he’s giving them instructions.

“Come on,” he says, sweeping by them. “I’ve got the room number.”

 

Diego and Klaus share a look, but Diego shrugs and follows after.

Klaus takes a second to push himself up from the wall, and nearly stumbles. His elbow drips.

“Jesus Klaus,” Ben mutters. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You’re leaving a trail,” Ben points out.

Klaus ignores him and doesn’t look. Ignorance and all that.

 

He didn’t _like_ being hurt. He’d play up a cold, a hangnail, anything that wasn’t serious, but when he did get injured, he moreso wanted to curl up in bed and pretend like it never happened and would go away. Doubly so now that Diego was accidentally the cause of his wound.

Diego was probably the brother he got along the best with, after Ben of course, and Klaus didn’t want to jeopardize that. Who knows how Diego would react. Guilt, probably. Blame Klaus for getting himself in that situation to begin with where he needed to be rescued. He’s not helpless, not completely anyway.

 

He’s busy thinking about that and not paying attention to where he’s going. It turns out he was following Ben, who wasn’t following Five or Diego like Klaus thought.

“What are we doing again?” Klaus asks.

Ben sighs. “Diego and Five went the other way to the room. We’re covering the back route in case the guy tries to run for it.”

Klaus hums and nods sagely, the world catching around the edges for a minute like a lagging video game.

 

“You look bad,” Ben tells him, reaching out a hand before pulling it back. Not like he could feel Klaus’s forehead for fever or check his pulse, or any of the other first aid related things that required physical presence.

 

“Which way?” Klaus asks, ignoring that statement.

“The room is right there,” Ben says, pointing. The door looks like it’s been busted open, probably Diego’s doing, because why would they use their brother’s teleportation skills when they could resort to property damage.

 

Klaus rolls his eyes but trudges toward.

“Yes, I’m here, we saw no funny business on our way, so hopefully you two have something.” He pauses just through the doorway, his stumbling brain finally realizing that the person in the room was not one of his brothers.

“Ah. I think this is the wrong room.” He checks his watch. “Yup, definitely the wrong room. I’ll just go now.”

 

He turns to leave, spotting Five and Diego just down the hall, but something collides with his head and he’s falling.

  

* * *

 

 

When Klaus blinks, there’s a hazy bluish shape standing above him. He vaguely recognizes Ben’s form, the tendrils from his stomach reaching across the room and waving around a man that Klaus thinks might have been their target. He can’t actually remember.

He’s on the ground, which, gross, since there’s no telling the last time the carpet was cleaned, and not to mention it’s covered in blood.

Oh. That might be his. Right.

 

There’s also a tendril that’s reaching down to him and is wrapped around his bleeding upper arm, tourniquet like.

 

Huh.

 

Klaus isn’t entirely sure how he’s making Ben corporeal, considering he apparently passed out, but decides it’s not the time to question it. Instead he leans back on the disgusting carpet and lets his very capable brother handle the heavy lifting. He needs to save his strength for explaining to Diego that yes, it was technically his doing, but not his fault.

 

Maybe Ben could do that for him too.


End file.
